


förskola

by hatebeat



Series: Putting the gears in motion [21]
Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 15:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1174889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hatebeat/pseuds/hatebeat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sweden, 1979. Skwisgaar starts preschool and notices that he's a bit different than the other children.</p>
            </blockquote>





	förskola

Skwisgaar had been counting down the days until preschool started. He had started all the way back at 32 days, and now today was finally _the_ day, the day he was going to go to preschool for the very first time. He had on his jacket and his new shoes and inside the small bag on his back he carried his dinosaur and two tubs of play-doh, one green and one yellow (but the yellow one had kind of gotten some red smeared into it). He had a small thermos of soup in there for a snack as well, but he had already forgotten about that.

He had no idea what to expect from preschool, and as he walked toward town holding on tightly to his mother's hand, he started to feel a strange feeling in his stomach that he'd never felt before, he was pretty sure. He'd never been away from his mother for very long before, but he was going to be today. He'd definitely never been around other people without his mother around. He didn't know how to talk to other adults.

When he got to his classroom, though, and his mother left him, he realised quickly that it wasn't the other adults he had to worry much about. Skwisgaar had never before interacted with other kids his age, but there were a whole mess of them in the room, and a lot of them seemed as though they already knew one another. 

He didn't worry about them for too long, though. One of the adults introduced herself to him- directly to him- as 'Miss Henrika' and took Skwisgaar by the hand, showing him to his own spot where he could put his own backpack. 

For a little while, he was encouraged to go play with the other kids. Skwisgaar held his dinosaur close to his chest and approached a low table where a girl was looking at a book and a boy was colouring on a piece of paper. Skwisgaar didn't say anything, just sat down and set his dinosaur on the table in front of them. The other two said nothing to him until several minutes later when the boy turned his paper around, showing it to them.

"This is my cat. He sleeps on my dad's head sometimes when my dad sits on the couch, look. His name is Frank."

Skwisgaar looked at at the picture of a human-shaped blob that looked like it was wearing a furry hat. 

"This-" Skwisgaar started, but the girl at the table interrupted.

"Frank is your cat or your dad?" she inquired.

"My cat!" the boy said, laughing. "Dad is just dad."

Soon after, the two adults gathered the children into a circle, seated on the floor. They were suppose to all say hello and tell everybody their name, talk about themselves. Skwisgaar was not willing to do it, but as it came closer and closer to his turn, it seemed inevitable. 

"I'm Skwisgaar," he said very quietly, but that weird feeling in his stomach was back, and it felt like hundreds of eyes were all staring at him, even though he knew there were only about twenty other children in the room.

"Tell us something about yourself," Miss Henrika encouraged him.

Skwisgaar looked around, then down at his lap. He lifted his dinosaur a little bit, showing it off shyly.

"This is my dinosaur. His name is Valborg. My mother gave him to me."

He didn't find much luck in making friends throughout the rest of the day- even with Valborg's help- but he wasn't sure he minded that. He'd never had them before, after all.

Hours passed slowly, but at the end of the day, parents came trickling in to pick up their children. The boy with the cat's dad came to take him home, but he didn't think his dad looked much like the boy drew in his picture. Some of the others left with their mothers, some left with both a dad and a mom. Skwisgaar sat quietly holding onto his dinosaur, wondering if maybe his mother had forgotten about him.

She turned up at last, however, when there were only two other kids still waiting. He smiled and went right to her, and he showed her his very own spot for his bookbag before taking it down from the hook and carefully tucking his dinosaur back inside.

On the walk back home, his mother asked, "How did you like school?"

"It was alright," was Skwisgaar's only reply. He told her nothing of the boy with the cat or the picture he had drawn of his dinosaur chewing on the leaves of trees or even about drinking his thermos of soup. He was already looking forward to dinner.

Skwisgaar was quiet throughout the evening, but it wasn't unusual at home like it seemed to be at preschool. He and his mother were both quiet people, and that had never seemed strange until he went to school today with people who talked a lot, even when they had nothing really important to say. He took a long, warm bath, and feeling a bit tired out from his long day, he went to his room for bed without much encouragement from his mother. She did come in to say goodnight to him, but when he didn't respond right away, she didn't immediately turn out the light.

" _Goodnight_ , I said," she repeated more firmly, one hand poised on the light switch and the other a bit impatiently on her hip. 

Skwisgaar remained sitting up in bed, cross-legged and looking down at his quilt.

"The other kids at preschool have fathers," he told her.

"So they do," she said simply. 

"Where's my father?" Skwisgaar asked, daring a look up at her.

His mother said nothing for a moment, and he thought she might just turn off the light, say goodnight once more, and shut his bedroom door behind her. But she came over to his bed and she sat on the edge, and Skwisgaar finally laid down, putting his head on the pillow as he looked up at her with unrelenting curiosity.

"Well? Where is he?"

"Your father is in Asgard," she said, smoothing his blanket out.

"Asgard?"

"That's the home of the gods, Skwisgaar." His mother tucked the blanket up to his chin, and then stood up. She turned her back on him. "And he'll be disappointed if he finds out his son isn't asleep yet!"

She paused at the door to look back at him once more, but then shut off the light and didn't say another word before leaving. Skwisgaar lay awake, creating an image of a place called Asgard in his mind.

Two days later, his mother handed him his bookbag before taking him to preschool. When he hung it in the spot that was just for him, he opened it to pull out his dinosaur, but inside he found a picture book. The front cover read _The Children of Odin_ above a picture of a man with a spear, seated upon a throne. Valborg helped him to read every page of it that day.


End file.
